Gay Sheep in the New York Times

Speaking of the role of blogs in science communication, today's NY TImes has an interesting article about the way a sloppily reported story about research on gay sheep got all out of proportion: Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and the Perils of Bad Publicity (also mentioned by Dave this morning).

Apparently, the media reporting was heavily influenced by PETA, and much of the blogosphere fell for it, except for a couple of notable exceptions, including 'emptypockets' who is a co-blogger on Next Hurrah and a Diarist on Daily Kos who focuses mainly on science topics.

His analysis of the way story spread through the blogosphere is very insightful and informative.

Here at scienceblogs.com, the story was picked up by Pharyngula and Gene Expression, from where it spread through the science blogosphere, but the PETA version spread more rapidly via LiveJournal and MySpace to the LGTB blogs which took it at face value.

What is the difference between the two opposite accounts? The use of a single word: "control".

The release quoted Dr. Roselli as saying that the research "also has broader implications for understanding the development and control of sexual motivation and mate selection across mammalian species, including humans."

Mr. Newman, who wrote the release, said the word "control" was used in the scientific sense of understanding the body's internal controls, not in the sense of trying to control sexual orientation.

"It's discouraging that PETA can pick one word, try to add weight to it or shift its meaning to suggest that you are doing something that you clearly are not," he said.

Dr. Roselli said that merely mentioning possible human implications of basic research was wildly different from intending to carry the work over to humans.

Mentioning human implications, he said, is "in the nature of the way we write our grants" and talk to reporters. Scientists who do basic research find themselves in a bind, he said, adding, "We have been forced to draw connections in a way that we can justify our research."

Yes, when information from the environment alters the pattern of activity of a portion of the nervous or endocrine systems which results in a change of activity of another organ, we say that the function of that organ is "controlled" by the brain or hormones. The brain and the hormones control many other aspects of physiology and behavior. This use of the word is not at all problematic.

Other biologists may use the term "control" in a bit more problematic way, when speaking about genes controlling physiology of behavior, but even this usage in no way implies that scientists, or business, or government are iching to control anything.

Ah, the power of language and its distortion (see my previous post below for another example)!